Volta Trucks is one step closer to returning to production offering a boost for urban electric mobility and greener logistics operations
Steyr Automotive has announced the signing of an initial agreement for the resumption of production for the all-electric Volta Zero truck, following “intense negotiations” and “constructive cooperations.” The news has been welcomed by sustainable automotive proponents after Volta’s eventful commercial journey, to say the least.
Established in 2019, Volta Trucks was “set on reshaping commercial vehicle operations for a sustainable future.” Due to the global electrification project, Volta Trucks kept growing; receiving more than 6,000 orders for its vehicles across several countries and regions. Among these, logistics company DB Schenker was reported to have made a significant pre-order for 1,470 Volta vehicles; the largest pre-order for electric trucks in Europe at the time.
As of April 2022, Volta Trucks had an order backlog of approximately 6,000 vehicles valued at around $1.3 billion, and had operations across several countries, including France, Spain, The Netherlands and Austria; with registered offices in Sweden and the UK.
“About 18% of global energy emissions can be attributed to road vehicles, of which 60% come from passenger vehicles”
- The World Economic Forum
Volta’s flagship offering was the Volta Zero; a fully-electric, 16-tonne urban delivery truck with significant greening potential. With the growing trend of cities banning commercial vehicles from urban centres, Volta Trucks’ solutions came at an opportune moment. The truckmaker began working on an 18-tonne variant to meet market demand, and the company’s success seemed inevitable.
Bouncing back from bankruptcy: Volta’s volatile journey
But despite its sustainable climb, back in October 2023, AMS sister publication Automotive Logistics (AL) covered the story of the EV trucking company filing for bankruptcy; citing the fallout of its battery supplier, Proterra, (which itself had defaulted two months prior to Volta’s declaration).
The news of Volta’s downfall was a blow to sustainable electric vehicle production, particularly in the crucially growing market segment focused on logistics and commercial transportation.
According to the World Economic Forum: “About 18% of global energy emissions can be attributed to road vehicles, of which 60% come from passenger vehicles.
“Moreover, these emissions are on the rise, and half of them originate in city trips.”
With urban transport accounting for such a significant portion of vehicle emissions outputs, the news of Volta’s undoing was reluctantly received. But bankruptcy was not the end. Less than two months after the sustainable truck company’s apparent demise, Luxor Capital Group fortuitously announced it had acquired Volta’s UK assets; potentially bringing the project back from the brink of failure.
Luxor was the company responsible for leading the investment in Volta’s initial funding rounds, eventually finding itself snapping up the truckmaker through the formation of the new Volta Commercial Vehicles Ltd unit to enable the acquisition.
Steyr-ing sustainable urban electric mobility
The latest announcement of the Volta Zero’s production revival by automotive company, Steyr, points to the model’s serious potential for sustainable urban mobility. Steyr Automotive was the key partner to Volta Trucks, playing an instrumental role in the production launch of Volta’s first units back in 2021.
In a joint statement by the management of Steyr automotive, the company said: “We are extremely pleased with the signing of the agreement as, for us, it represents an important milestone for the return to production in this crucial business sector.
“Our team is highly motivated to bring the innovative truck to the road together with our partner Volta Commercial Vehicles,” stated the management of Steyr Automotive.”
This time around, if the Volta Zero is to survive, Steyr will have to do things differently. Volta Trucks has, in the past, said that it stuck to innovating “only where it counts,” and although this was in the context of the runup to a launch date, the philosophy spilled over into its wider operations and approach.
The company’s ethos of “standardisation” and “simplification,” led it to a model where it was using “off the shelf” parts. But this meant that it was overly dependent on its supplier base, one of which whose liquidation (Poterra), led to its own eventual failure. Steyr automotive’s long-standing expertise and expansive network positions it to be successful this time around; assuming that it shifts its approach from dependent to adequately self-sufficient.
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